


A Minrathous Vice

by psikitty



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-05
Updated: 2016-04-08
Packaged: 2018-05-31 12:43:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6470422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psikitty/pseuds/psikitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cullen and Dorian find they have a common ground in their vices.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“I’ve heard you are the man to see about my questions regarding the Southern Circles.” Dorian, Scion of the House of Pavus, Altus of Tevinter, Only Son of Magister Pavus, and now currently of the Inquisition, grinned as he leaned against the doorway, blocking Cullen from exiting the small chapel of Skyhold.

“You heard wrong,” Cullen said warily. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Dorian, it was more that he didn’t trust him. Cullen was man enough to admit that he didn’t know if it was because Pavus was from Tevinter, or if it was because he seemed to have little problem dabbling in the grey areas of magic. Cullen had seen him do it multiple times, and it always raised his hackles. Dorian Pavus was one literal knife edge away from blood magic, if he hadn’t already lost his way.

The Inquisitor insisted that Dorian was different, but how many times had Cullen heard that certain mages were different, special, and could be trusted when others were not.

How many times had that led to disaster?

Too many in Cullen’s lifetime, and he wasn’t that old. Although sometimes it felt like it.

“Did I? Then you are not a templar? You were also not a Knight-Captain for several years in Kirkwall? You also do not have the look of a man who is going through acute lyrium withdrawal?” Dorian tsked. “Dear commander, am I supposed to believe you partake of lyrium for fun? And here I thought that was purely a Minrathous vice.”

Years of templar discipline prevented Cullen from rearing back as if struck. He had been taunted by crueler mages than Pavus, but never this accurately.  “No, you heard wrong in that I was the man who would be willing to speak on the Circles. I don’t discuss my time with the templars. Besides, what could you possibly need to know that you couldn’t find from opening a book or asking one of the mages in Skyhold?”

“Ah…” An awkward pause from Dorian, then, “I apologize. Habit of mine to go on the offensive. A quick wit and a sharp tongue is a formidable weapon in Minrathous.”

“You go on the offensive by being offensive,” Cullen said, crossing his arms over his chest. “It has done you no favors here.”

Now Dorian looked distinctly uncomfortable. “So I have noticed. Still, so far my antics amuses the Inquisitor, and their opinion is the one that matters.”

Cullen narrowed his eyes, a look that had cowed many a recruit. “Is that the motive behind your friendship…”

Cullen saw it then, the quick flash of anger in Dorian’s eyes, as if he had insulted him by even asking. That told Cullen far more than anything that Dorian would ever say on the matter. That tiny flash of defiance, but not anger at being caught out. Cullen had questioned something important to Dorian.

“Oh, yes, commander. That is truly the only reason why I had ingratiated myself to them, because of course I would latch onto the one here with the most power.” Dorian pressed both hands on either side of the doorway and leaned forward. “It is what all magisters do, isn’t it?”

“You’re not a magister,” Cullen said evenly.

Dorian looked startled and his arms dropped to his sides. “I beg your pardon.”

“You’re an Altus, not a Magister,” Cullen reinterrated. He laughed at the dumbfounded look on Dorian’s face. “What? Did you think I wouldn’t know the difference, or remember when you told the Inquisitor your title? I was a templar and damned good at my job. My job that included knowing all I could about Tevinter.”

“Home of blood mages and demon lovers,” Dorian intoned.

Cullen quirked an eyebrow. “Don’t forget the Black Divine, that pretender to Andraste’s will.”

“Him?” Dorian snorted in elegant derision. “The man is a buffoon. He gets invitations to all the balls, but would prefer to sit in the Dark Spire and wield power no one really cares about. He commands the templars for Maker’s sake, and they had their claws removed centuries ago. Lyrium is for the mages, not for those who would mimic true power by consuming it.”

“Is that…” The tone of the conversation changed as quickly as a candle being blown out. One breath and Cullen was plunged into the dark.

Lyrium, it was always the lyrium that did it. Maker, he hated that he was so weak that the merest mention of it could change his mood, he was the puppet, while the lyrium was the puppet master. And the strings? Words, mere words. One mage to another asking if they remembered to pack a lyrium potion for their travels. A dwarf recounting his times in lyrium mines. Offhand remarks that made Cullen feel as if he would always be surrounded by the stuff, never escaping its hold. He was tired of seeing, hearing, and talking about it.

He was tired of wanting, but never allowed to have because of a damned promise he had made himself and the Inquisitor.

He could break the promise to himself so easily. He would be hurting no one but himself at that point. But he couldn’t break the promise he made to the Inquisitor to try and be strong. It went against everything that Cullen was, everything he had ever built himself up to be, and he refused to allow this clawing need for lyrium take that away from him.

“Commander?” Dorian’s voice penetrated Cullen’s ears and he realized that Dorian had been speaking to him for some time.

“I…”

Dorian flashed a gregarious smile. “I was just thinking that we haven’t really gotten a chance before now to speak to each other. Why not do this over what passes for wine here, maybe some ale if you wish.”

“Or something stronger,” Cullen murmured under his breath.

“Or something much stronger,” Dorian agreed. “Come! The ramshackled little tavern we have here isn’t so bad once you get used to one of the surliest barman I have ever encountered. We don’t even have to discuss anything of import. My treat, and as all of my former friends in Tevinter will tell you, I never utter those words.”

What choice did Cullen have. He could stay here and pray, stay on his knees with his hands clasped and Andraste’s statue before him, as if she would whisper words of comfort in his ears and take his pain away.

He’d tried that. He’d tried that until the agony in his legs had driven him from the chapel, cramped from kneeling for so long. A pain he had not felt since his vigil to become a templar.

Andraste had always given him comfort, seen him through some of the hardest times in his life, but this was a war within himself that Andraste seemed to see fit for him to fight alone.

A penance for his sins.

But as he looked at Dorian and that smile of his, there was a moment that Cullen thought that Andraste hadn’t left him to fight this alone after all.

 

**

 

The commander was a mess.

And Dorian knew messes.

He could admit that dragging Cullen to the tavern and plying him with drink was in no small part because the Altus wanting to assuage his guilt at having lashed out at him a few times. Dorian knew that he could be the proverbial cat--the slightest hint of real or imagined danger and he was hissing and spitting. His mother would say that he was a Pavus, and therefore a peacock. He didn’t see it, damned if they were pretty, but annoying, loud birds.

Maybe his mother did have a point after all…

They had found a table on the second floor, one away from others to give them a semblance of privacy. Cullen had never been in the tavern, and it had shown when they had entered, the patrons going silent, all eyes on the commander. Cullen had nodded at a few of them and the silence hadn’t broken until they had disappeared up the stairs.

“You do know how to command attention,” Dorian had muttered with amusement.

“It’s my fault for not having been in here before.” They took their seats and Cullen propped his elbows on the table and folded his hands together. “The men need to see their commander is one of them, but also not so much so that they lose respect.”

“Bull doesn’t seem to have that problem,” Dorian pointed out. “He also practically lives here.”

“The Iron Bull also has a small band. It’s much harder to do that when you command thousands.”

“I’m almost tempted to have you be the one to get our drinks,” Dorian said with a laugh. “The barman will be considerably nicer to you than he has ever been to me.” He slapped his palms on the table and stood. “But, seeing as I brought you here to take you away from any discomfort, I will be the one to go. Trust me to pick out your drink?”

Cullen met his eyes and released a breath. “Yes.” Hadn’t he just a little bit ago thought that he didn’t trust Pavus? But that was before they had spoken, before Pavus had dragged him away from the chapel.

Before he had admitted he had done it to take Cullen away from discomfort.

“I won’t poison it, I swear.” Dorian made a gesture of sealing an oath with his hands, something Tevinter children did. “Besides, it would lead to awkward questions since I am very much in your company at the moment.”

“We wouldn’t want you suspected of murder,” Cullen quipped.

“Good Maker, no!” Dorian pressed the back of his hand to his mouth. “The very idea of it!”

“Something hard,” Cullen said as Dorian began to walk away.

Dorian glanced over his shoulder, a wicked gleam in his eyes. He opened his mouth to reply, thought better of it, and snapped it shut again.

“I admire your restraint,” Cullen called out.

“As you should,” Dorian answered, disappearing down the stairs.

 

**

 

“What’re you doing, Pavus?” Bull said in a deep rumble when the mage walked by, two drinks in his hands.

“Bull!” Dorian exclaimed, as if he hadn’t seen the large qunari sprawled out in his usual seat.

“Leave the commander alone,” Bull said flatly. “He’s not ready for a man like you, if he’s ready for a man at all.”

“You wound me, Bull,” Dorian replied. “I’m not nearly as predatory as that.”

Bull snorted. “You and I know that’s--”

“Bull shit?” Dorian supplied.

Bull rolled his eyes and then leaned his large, heavily muscled frame forward. “From one pervert to another, don’t go there. You’re just gonna end up disappointed. The commander is one tree ya can’t climb.”

“Why must everyone think I have to have some nefarious purpose driving everything I do,” Dorian cried to the ceiling. “I’m only friends with the Inquisitor for power. I’m only trying to make friends with the commander because I want to fuck him.”

“Well?” Bull asked with a knowing smile.

“So what if I do?” Dorian asked. “So does anyone in Skyhold with any inkling towards the male of the species. It doesn’t mean I will do anything about it. I know…” Dorian trailed off.

He knew what Cullen was going through, knew that look in his eyes, knew that clawing need. A Minrathous vice was what Dorian had called it, and Minrathous had so many vices.

Dorian was well acquainted with them all.

“You know?” Bull prompted.

“I know that I don’t have to explain myself to you. Think what you will. In fact, spread it around. If people think that I could get the rigid, but handsome commander into my bed, it would do wonders for my reputation.”

“What reputation?” Bull snorted.

“Exactly, nowhere to go but up at this point.” He gave Bull a sweeping bow, an impressive feat with two drinks in his hands. “Now if you will excuse me, The Iron Bull.”

“I’m always available for a shoulder to cry on when this blows up in your face!” Bull called after him.

“As long as I’m crying on said shoulder in your bed I suppose,” Dorian answered back.

Bull held up his hands and shrugged. “Well yeah. Where else?”

 

**

 

“Why are you doing this?”  Cullen asked. He was nursing his second glass of some fine Antivan brandy. He glanced up from the depths of the smooth, amber liquid and caught Dorian’s eye.

“Have it out, Pavus.”

“Is it time for my confession, Ser Cullen?” Dorian asked archly. “Shall I vent my spleen in the holy contract between confessor and penitent?”

Cullen didn’t rise to the bait. In the hours he and Dorian had been quietly dancing around what was happening, the dark intimacy of their secluded table, so like a confession booth, their drinks sacred wine, passed back and forth in order to bring one closer to the Maker and Andraste’s divine light.

There were moments in life when you were with the right person, and it was the right time for secrets to be spilled, a strange rapport that was special and fragile as it was sudden and strong. Cullen had learned the hard way over his life not to ignore these moments. No matter how they came about, they invariably seemed fated. They were how bonds were formed and strengthened.

Dorian felt it too.

“Lyrium, sex, drink, gambling, magic, power, money--I could go on and on. Addiction and the need to lose yourself in something where you can’t feel anymore, or what you  _ can _ feel is an artificial joy that you don’t think can be found in truth, is one I know very well.

“You look at me, and what do you see?” Dorian asked.

Cullen gave it thought before he answered. “A dispassionate man who uses a flashy style and a gregarious smile to disarm. One with an ego to match. Someone who has never had to worry about going hungry since he has always had slaves at his beck and call to feed him. Someone who came to the Inquisition on a lark.”

Dorian’s lips twitched in amusement under his mustache. “So close, commander.” He took no offense. Dorian was well aware how others saw him, how they had always seen him.

“If my father could, he would disinherit me. As it is, I am his bane. The poor man is stuck with me as his only child and heir. Poor Magister Pavus, to have such a disgrace for a child.” Dorian’s accent had thickened, remembering past conversations. “I learned at a young age that it didn’t matter what I did or did not do, I would always be two things to my father, a disappointment and an embarrassment.”

“So why not live up to that,” Cullen said.

“Exactly.” Dorian tapped at his temple. “I’m very good at magic. That’s no idle boast born of ego, but a fact. Alexius took me under his wing after the man had found me in a brothel. Shocking I know. I had already been kicked out of one school after another, my father was at his wit’s end.”

He leaned closer, increasing the intimacy of the moment. “You… You have reasons beyond selfishness and a childish need to rebel against his father, to rebel against what he was born as. You had a cause, something you believed in. You had your holy mission, one I assume you started at a young age?”

Cullen nodded. “Older than most, but still young.”

“What’s happening to you now is not weakness, but strength. I dabbled in lyrium for a time, using it more as something to make me forget than something to augment power. For mages, it is consumed differently to get that far, but for one without magic…’

Cullen slid his eyes shut, unable to look at Dorian and the understanding on his face.

“My main vice was sex. Men like me are tolerated in Minrathous, but we are to be not seen as we are. It would be vulgar. I’m supposed to settle down with a magister’s daughter and pump out the next generation of Pavus children. What I wanted did not matter. How I am did not matter. So I fucked my way across the city and back. I made sure that everyone knew. The sex it… In those moments I didn’t have to pretend I was something I was not. I could let go, let all of it fall away and I sought out that feeling as much as I was physically able.”

Cullen had opened his eyes. “Dangerous.”

“Exceedingly,” Dorian agreed. “There’s a fine line between expressing your sexuality in a healthy manner and…”

“And what you were doing,” Cullen finished.

“It has not been easy being here,” Dorian admitted. “I know what everyone thinks of me, and while in Minrathous I liked being talked badly about, because at least people were talking, here it is different.”

“You want to be taken seriously.” Cullen took a sip of his drink. “To prove that you are more than what you were shaped as.”

“My own man.”

In that moment, Cullen understood. Dorian and he were cut from parallel cloths. While not the same, they both had this need to prove they were more than their base needs, more than what people thought.

Dorian Pavus was not a bored nobleman’s son, and Cullen was not a lyrium addicted templar who couldn’t survive away from the Order and their lyrium supply.

They would not be controlled or defined.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought this would only go to two chapters, but now it will be three. Whoops!

It became almost a nightly ritual for them--meeting at the tavern and going up the stairs to their usual spot. There were evenings where Cullen couldn't make it, his duties requiring his attention far into the night. There were other times when Dorian would be the one absent, taken to various places by the Inquisitor, coming back with harrowing tales.

“A damned dragon! The Inquisitor took us to kill a damned dragon!” Dorian exclaimed. He downed half of his drink in one go, the heavy glass hitting the table hard.

“I know, I saw the head,” Cullen replied with a laugh. “Very impressive. I don’t know of many who have taken down a dragon other than the Champion of Kirkwall and the Hero of Ferelden.”

“Impressive my ass.” Dorian swallowed the rest of his drink, allowing himself a moment to appreciate the smooth burn. His hands hadn’t stopped shaking since the battle with the dragon had ended, but they seemed to finally be settling down.

“It was one of the most terrifying things I have ever done. Bull was laughing. Laughing! The thing is breathing fire right in his face and he acts as if we were at a circus performance and the dragon was just there for our amusement.”

Dorian leaned forward, as if anyone could overhear them, seated as far from everyone else as they were. “Between you and me, the look in Bull’s eyes when he looked at the creature was a little… amorous.”

Cullen sputtered in surprised laughter and sat back. “Don’t let him catch you saying that.”

“I’m not afraid of Bull. Just because he could crush my head with a bicep, doesn't mean I should be scared of him.”

Finally… His shaking had stopped. He could feel the tension leaking out of his muscles. He felt exhausted--the fight and the adrenaline leaving his system, was taking their toll. He glanced up and shared a grin with Cullen.

How long had it been since they had started this ritual? Months now, at the very least. These chats had become the highlight of Dorian’s day, something to look forward to no matter what else was going on in his life.

It had made things bearable.

No, more than bearable.

Absolutely wonderful.

Dorian abruptly got to his feet, his chair scraping against the wooden floor with a screech. “Need a refill, I’ll be right back.” He didn’t wait for Cullen to reply before he leisurely made his way to the stairs and down them.

When he reached the first floor he leaned back against the wall and dropped his head in his hand. The shaking was back, but it was for an entirely different reason.

He wished it was because of a dragon. He’d take one over this awful realization any day.

_ You’re an idiot, Pavus,  _ he told himself.  _ So foolish and so damned predictable. _

Keeping his thoughts and feelings close to his chest was something that Dorian had excelled at when in Minrathous. To do otherwise was to court disaster. Rivals would sense your weakness and pounce, reputations had been ruined and lives lost for less.

It had been the only thing preventing him from going into hysterics in front of Cullen.

_ You’re in love with him,  _ he thought.  _ Of course you are. You never do anything easy, do you, Dorian? _

He should have seen it coming--the way he looked forward to the sun going down, how something would happen and he couldn’t wait to tell Cullen later on.

That scar above Cullen’s lip, wanting to trace it with his tongue and--

Dorian pressed the heel of his palm between his eyes, as if he could push the thoughts back into the darkness of his mind where they belonged.

_ You’ve been here before, Dorian. You know how this ends. Either you get your heart broken and lose your friend because he can’t see you this way, or you end up becoming an experiment, something to try once, but never again. _

But Cullen was different. He wouldn’t lose him as a friend, he wouldn’t use Dorian. The mage knew this in his heart. Cullen was that rare breed of truly honorable man. His every action, his every word spoke of the honor and goodness in him. Frankly, it was what had put him off to the commander in the first place. In Dorian’s experience, good and honorable men like Cullen had a nasty secret somewhere, something that Dorian would want no part of. But the more he got to know Cullen, the more he was convinced that wasn’t the case.

Dorian realized the bard had changed her song. It had become mournful, with a tinge of hope. Dorian’s eyes snapped up and he caught her eyes. She gave him a small smile before she went onto the next line.

“Get yourself together, Pavus,” Dorian chided himself. Dorian straightened and pushed away from the wall. Never mind losing it in front of Cullen, he couldn’t be seen by the others like this either. He was a Pavus and a Pavus was not weak.

With his head held high, he walked over to the bar.

 

**

“Will you tell me about the Southern Circles now?” Dorian asked. The first floor of the tavern below was crowded with a poetry contest. Dorian was glad he couldn’t hear much. What little he had heard before they had come up the stairs had made him weep for what passed for Southern schooling.

_ How horribly elitist of me,  _ he thought.

Cullen choked on his drink, the amber liquid burning down his throat in ways it wasn’t supposed to. He looked up at Dorian through watering eyes. “Excuse me?” He croaked.

“Don’t you remember?” Dorian asked. “I came to you a few months ago to ask you about it. I was wondering if you were more willing to indulge me now.”

Cullen could feel his throat close in a way that had nothing to do with his drink going down the wrong pipe. No one person knew his whole tale. Cullen wasn’t sure why that was, only that he had never felt comfortable purging the bile that was his past all at once. No, it had been much similar to slowly leak it out to various people that asked, just enough to have told the truth, but not enough to cause complete disgust.

_ What will he think of you? _ Cullen wondered.  _ As a mage--what will he think of you? _

Cullen didn’t know what caused him to open his mouth and ask Dorian, “What do you wish to know?” All he knew was that the second the question had been released into the air between them, Cullen felt a shift in their friendship. He trusted Dorian Pavus, and he wanted him to know.

Dorian leaned forward and propped his elbows on the table, folding his hands together. “So much. The mages of Tevinter never rebelled, not the way it is happening here. We gained power through slow reform.” He grinned. “And of course the occasional political assassination and some magic. Gold also helped considerably. The next thing anyone knew, the mages were the ones running things once more and it has been like that ever since.”

“Orlais is far from Tevinter,” Cullen pointed out. “Your Black Divine was also never recognized by the church. Here it is much different… or was. Mages cannot help what they were born as. As a templar, it was my duty to make sure they did not hurt themselves or others, that they did not give into temptation.”

“Blood magic and demons,” Dorian said in a tone filled with overdramatic doom.

“They learned that through discipline and divine teachings, through the Maker and Andraste, they could serve man. But there was constant danger of slipping into darkness, my job was to watch for corruption and to take care of those that fell.”

“Take care?” Dorian quirked an eyebrow in dry amusement. “Hunt down and kill you mean. I told you once that the lust for power was another MInrathous vice. It’s one that is lauded. To stifle that can be almost impossible for some people, mage or not.”

“We tested them at every turn,” Cullen told him. “The Harrowing was just one of the first tests.”

Dorian scowled. “Isn’t that the little ritual you templars do where you pretend you aren’t cruel and doing blood magic? Because I have to say, that one has raised more than a few eyebrows in Tevinter.”

Cullen opened his mouth to deny it, but found he couldn’t. “I have not reconciled my feelings on the Harrowing and the part I have played in the ritual. On one hand, the phylacteries that are made using the blood of mages do help us to find those that escape the Circles and cause people harm.”

“On the other?” Dorian prompted.

“On the other it made them prisoners and us nothing more than jailers.”

“Jailers who put demons inside still young mages and then told them to resist or die. How many gave in because they were frightened and the demon promised them freedom from a sword at their throat?” Dorian asked

“Too many,” Cullen conceded. “That part of the Harrowing told us nothing of the character of the mage. I know that now. It created fear and resentment, gave an opening to future dealings with demons. Resisting once does not mean they will be less likely to succumb in the future, just as bargaining with the demon for their life does not make them weak when they are young and scared.

“We gave them a dagger we did not train them fully to use, then threw them to the wolves.”

Cullen scrubbed at his face. “But as much as I have questioned the Harrowing, there are certain aspects of Circle life that I still believe in. The order and help that it can give mages.I have seen what happens when a whole Circle becomes corrupted. Demons and blood mages running rampant, turning on the templars and fellow mages who did not wish to join them. The Order of the Templars and the Circles of the Magi will never be what they once were, and while that is a good thing in part, we need templars in the world to fight against the darkness and chaos that blood mages can bring down on us. We need an Order that is not yoked to the Chantry by lyrium.”

He glanced up, as if he could see right through the wooden beams of the vaulted ceiling. “There is a hole in the sky, Dorian.”

“A hole put there by mages. Mages like me,” Dorian said flatly.

“When I was younger, during the last Blight, the Circle Tower of Ferelden was overrun by blood mages and demons. I was held prisoner and tortured for days, weeks, before I was finally set free by the Hero of Ferelden. I saw things that still haunt me, things that I could forget with the…” Cullen sucked in a shuddering breath through his teeth.

“The lyrium helps you templars to forget the horrors that only demons and blood mages can show you,” Dorian said in sudden realization.

“Everyday I remember more of that time. What once seemed so far away has begun to haunt my waking thoughts. I transferred to Kirkwall after that. I hated mages. I hated magic. I saw blood mages and corruption everywhere. Maybe if I had looked at my fellow templars instead, maybe I could have seen what was happening in front of my nose, instead of seeing what was not there.”

“I don’t think anything could have stopped what happened in Kirkwall if Varric is to be believed,” Dorian said gently.

That gentleness tore at Cullen.

“No? I was Knight-Captain. The only one with more power over the Templars of Kirkwall was Knight-Commander Meredith. There were men and women under my command who abused mages, tortured them, raped them, killed them. The mages stopped reporting disappearances because they didn’t think the few good templars left would protect them. Can you imagine? Children would go missing and their friends couldn’t tell me because the templars were the ones doing it.

“Hawke tried to tell me--so many times--but I wouldn’t listen. Hawke was nothing more than an apostate under the protection of the Viscount of Kirkwall. One who was a friend of other apostates. Why should I have believed him? Why should I have believed the mages who risked themselves to try and report the crimes that were being committed against them? Mages lie about templars all the time. Why should I not turn a blind eye to amount of tranquil being made when it was on the orders of my commander?”

“Cullen…” Dorian began.

But Cullen pushed ahead. “I begged her. I begged the Hero of Ferelden to tell my commander to purge the tower. I begged her to do the right thing, that all the mages in the tower were corrupted, even if they didn’t start out that way. She didn’t do it. She spared those that hadn’t fallen, maybe even letting some of the blood mages slip through the cracks. I promised myself that I would never allow the mages under my care to get that far again, that I had been too lax, too willing to believe the best of them.”

“So you believed the worst of them in Kirkwall,” Dorian said softly.

Cullen nodded sharply. “With the Inquisition, I have a chance to atone, to make things right for failing the people of Kirkwall as I did. For failing all of Thedas by not stopping what is happening now before it started.”

Dorian reached over and covered Cullen’s hands with his own. He could feel the calluses on the commander’s knuckles, remnants from times Cullen had had to fight with his fists instead of his sword.

“All that has happened… That is far too much to blame on a single man’s actions or lack thereof. The Southern mages would have rebelled eventually. Kirkwall already had a reputation for having one of the worst Circles in the south. That’s been so for decades. That red lyrium of Varric's wanted to be found. If not by him and his expedition, then by someone. It would have corrupted someone else, and even worse could have happened. You are not responsible for the actions of bad people, Cullen. Just as I am not responsible for the actions of every Tevinter. All we can do is move forward and hope to the Maker we can do better.”

Dorian squeezed Cullen’s hands. “Should I blame myself for helping Alexius with the spell that has been ripping holes in the fabric of the world? I did not know what he would do. Just as you did not know what your commander was doing. You take chances and trust people in life. I trust you.”

Cullen turned his hands up and laced his fingers with Dorian’s. “As I trust you. Thank you.”

  
  



End file.
